Where are all the single people in China? MOMO dating app report

Single’s Day statistics from Momo indicates Southeast China has the most “single dogs”

Momo, a Chinese location-based services instant messaging platform, published a statistics report regarding single people on November 11, stating that the “polar regions”, with Guangdong, Yunnan and Hainan in the south, and Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning in the north, have the highest percentage of single people. The ratio of single people was reported to be at about 46%, and 75% of them were gaming enthusiasts.

Percentage of single people according to MOMO, popular Chinese dating APP

Why did the southern regions and the three eastern provinces have such huge, in fact, leading, numbers of “single dogs” (a self-mockery term used by single people)? According to analysis of the report, the traditional custom of favoring men over women persisted in Guangdong, Hainan, and other southern regions. The resulting gender imbalance was made worse by high number of labor-intensive industries, which required large amounts of young physical manpower and thus, caused more young people from other regions flooding into the south. As such, the number of single people remains high.

On the other pole, distribution of single people in the three eastern provinces located at the northernmost of China, was significant. The birth rate in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning is declining and populations are aging fast, resulting in an increasingly wide succession gap. This gap is further exacerbated by the slow local economic development, and therefore many young people opt to venture elsewhere for work. Those who choose to stay thus faced a glaring shortage of potential love interests, and as such, number of single people is very high as well.

Lonely Gamers?

According to the report, 75% of these single people were gaming enthusiasts, who were obviously more into video games than socializing outside. To them, forming raiding parties in games was more preferable than mingling with real people offline. Therefore, was there any surprise that these people were single?

Popular perception has it that single people are mostly socially awkward, or that they are otaku through and through. However, findings of the report beg to differ, stating instead that single people enjoyed meeting and talking to strangers on social media the most. In fact, they were two times more likely to greet strangers than non-single people, and enjoyed attending activities and events like exhibitions, concerts, parties and so on. The report further stated that there were six times more single people attending offline parties than non-single people, due to being more time-flexible. They also attended activities and events with a more open attitude, which allowed them to make more new friends, enriched their lives, and ultimately, increased their chances of getting into relationships.

Momo stated that the rise of social media has changed the way users connect with the world. Single or not, people can now get to make more friends, obtain more opportunities and get to know more exciting happenings, through the use of social media.